After breezing through the election campaign without a single style slip-up, perhaps Samantha Cameron doesn't feel the need to be so political now that she is ensconced in No 10.

Her £749 – or, if you prefer, 36.8 first-child benefit payments – dress is a contrast from the Marks & Spencer dress wore to last year's Tory conference.

At £65, the dress signalled that the new Tories were down-to-earth and sensitive to their increasingly impecunious electorate (though it was later revealed to have been made especially for Cameron).

It may only be a frock, but none of these choices are made without considering how it will look, – and not just in the aesthetic sense – so you wonder what Mrs Cameron and her advisers must have been thinking. Because at a time when even the Tories admit their cuts will be deep and painful, a £749 dress looks more extravagant than ever.